Find out what people need and want – that you can and are willing to provide.
This is the simplest solution for many of life’s challenging problems. All four elements are vital. It applies if you are looking for a new job or relationship, creating a website or a weblog, or starting a business. .
In any of these areas, getting in communication with people to find out what they need and want and deciding what you can and are willing to provide will give you almost everything you need to develop a meaningful relationship going forward.
Doing only one or two is a recipe for wasting vast amounts of time and money and sets you up for a loss. Understand and do every part of this:
Find out what people need and want – that you can and are willing to provide.
Very few people do this, possibly because it means finding out things they do not want to know.
Two typical situations where this applies
1. Let’s say you are creating a storefront or a website to promote your business after several years of success through referrals alone. Do you know what people are saying about you that makes other people want to do business with you?
If you understand what is being said about you and why people want to rely on that and do business with you, all you have to decide is how you can provide what is already being promised by others.
Your promotion, store or site design, and your branding should align with the good things that people are already saying about you. It is a matter of meeting the expectation that have already been set up through your successful transactions with others.
2. How about that upcoming job interview? Are you concentrating on making a good impression and smoothly presenting your qualifications?
This can lead to an interview where someone leads off with, "Tell me about yourself" and a half hour later you are still running down the list of marvelous things you have done – most of which do not apply to what they are looking for.
Get in communication with the interviewer, just like he or she is a potential customer. If they ask you about yourself, make it a 20 second pitch like:
"I have xx years of experience including my time in the service. I have developed products, put on major events , and managed call centers.
"What are you looking for in this position?"
Keep the focus on what they need and want and are willing to pay for and you will have a most enjoyable interview and it will be amazingly stress-free. Your responses will be more on target when they tell you the qualifications they are actually looking for.
You will also be able to spot situations where they have not really defined what they need and want. Let’s say they are looking for an events manager and they have never put on events, or a sales manager and they have never had one before.
Your questions are critical to establishing a good working relationship, because you really need to understand what their expectations are and be clear what yours are also.
Whether you are looking for a job waiting on tables or managing a store or a group, your questions can make the difference between a great job or a painful ordeal.
One of the unexpected benefits is that you will discover situations
that are not right for you before the interviewer does and can end off
gracefully with no hard feelings. Your parting line may be, "That’s an
interesting position, but it doesn’t make the best use of my skills."
The bottom line
Any time spent finding out what people need and want from you and are willing to pay for is well worth the effort. Please note, this is not a sales pitch. This is a "survey" and it cannot be a list of canned questions. A simple conversation over coffee at the right time and place can do wonders.
Try it and see. It will make things easier to an amazing degree.